Epic used its ‘State of Unreal’ GDC keynote to announce that a number of new and older games are headed to its Epic Games store, including upcoming exclusives such as Remedy’s Control.
Set for release this summer,Controlis a supernatural third-person action-adventure game from the studio behind Quantum Break and Alan Wake. It’ll be available onPCexclusively via Epic’s digital store, while it’ll also be released onPS4andXbox One.
Epic has also partnered with newTake-Twopublishing labelPrivate Division. The move will seeThe Outer Worlds, an upcoming single-player first-person sci-fi RPG fromObsidian, have a simultaneous PC release on both theEpic Gamesand Windows 10 stores.
It will also seeAncestors: The Humankind OdysseyfromPanache Digital Games, a studio led by the creator of theAssassin’s Creedfranchise,Patrice Désilets, released on PC exclusively through theEpic Games store. Both titles will still be released on consoles, and will hit other PC digital distribution platforms after a year.
Meanwhile,Quantic Dream’sDetroit: Become Human,Heavy RainandBeyond: Two Soulswill be coming to PC for the first time “soon”, when they’re made available exclusively via the Epic Games store. To date, the titles have only been released onPlayStationplatforms, due to an exclusive working relationship between Quantic Dream andSony, which ended in January 2019 after more than a decade.
Epic has also claimed that the Epic Games store’s user base had grown to over 85 million PC players since launching as a rival toSteamin December 2018.
It offers developers an 88 per cent share of the revenue their games bring in, compared to the 70/30 per cent revenue split offered byValve.
The more attractive revenue split has helped Epic secure some major exclusives in the past few months. Epic said atGDCthis week that one of those,Metro: Exodus, sold over 2.5 times as many copies in its first few weeks on the Epic Games store than the previous series entry,Metro: Last Light, sold on Steam over the same period of time.
The more recently releasedThe Division 2, a co-exclusive available fromUbisoft‘s UPlay service and the Epic Games store, is arguably the most high-profile game yet to exclude Steam as a distribution platform. And at GDC this week, Ubisoft and Epic announced an extension to their agreement that will bring “several major PC releases” to the Epic Games store in partnership with Uplay, with further details to follow at a later date.
The Epic Games store also offers users a free game every two weeks, and theFortnite-maker said at GDC that Ubisoft back catalogue titles will join its free game programme at a later date. Night School Studio’s supernatural thriller Oxenfree, which normally costs £14.99, is currently free to download as part of the scheme.
Other games confirmed as coming exclusively to the Epic Games store include Afterparty from Night School Studios, The Cycle from Yager,Dauntlessfrom Phoenix Labs, Industries of Titan fromBrace Yourself Games,Journey to the Savage PlanetfromTyphoon Studiosand505 Games, Kine from Chump Squad, Phoenix Point from Snapshot Games, The Sinking City from Frogwares and Bigben, Spellbreak from Proletariat Inc, andSolar AshfromHeart MachineandAnnapurna Interactive.
